Solar System

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Interesting theory:


The Earth's magnetic field permanently protects us from the charged particles and radiation that originate in the Sun. This shield is produced by the geodynamo, the rapid motion of huge quantities of liquid iron alloy of very low viscosity in the Earth's outer core. To maintain this magnetic field until the present day, the classical model required the Earth's core to have cooled by around 3000 °C over the past 4.3 billion years. Now, a team of researchers from CNRS and Université Blaise Pascal suggests that, on the contrary, its temperature has fallen by only 300 °C. The action of the Moon, overlooked until now, is thought to have compensated for this difference and kept the geodynamo active. This new model shows that the Moon's effect on the Earth goes well beyond merely causing tides.

The Earth continuously receives 3.7 TW (terawatt) of power through the transfer of the gravitational and rotational energy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system, and > 1 TW is thought to be enough to generate the Earth's magnetic field.

Sun today

AR2526 Sunspot In H-Alpha

Another interesting theory:

Planet X Blamed for Earth's Mass Extinctions

Pluto's Bladed Terrain in 3D

Opportunity Takes on Steepest Slope Ever Tried on Mars

The rover's tilt hit 32 degrees while Opportunity was making its closest approach to an intended target near the crest of "Knudsen Ridge."

 

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Another Solar system overdose for me:

Ceres, Earth (Aurora), Mars, Sun, Pluto, Charon

 

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Scientists have discovered fragments from an extremely rare meteorite strike that took place above Germany earlier this month.
Experts from Munster said they are 'delighted' to recover several fragments identified as being of the 'LL Chondritenklasse' (LL chondrite) class of meteorite - mostly stone with very little metal inside.
The latest fragments, which struck the earth in the municipality of Stubenberg in Bavaria, are already being studied excitedly by experts, who anticipate more fragments will still turn up.

Meteorite expert Professor Dr Addi Bischoff from the Institute for Planetary Studies at the University of Munster (WWU) said: 'Alert sky watchers spotted the meteorites burning into the atmosphere on 6 March.
'By analysing images of the entry, we were able to locate the impact point and find fragments on the ground, in total weighing 40g.

'What we have found so far from studying the fragments indicates that the main body of the meteorite had been struck several times by other celestial objects.
'The fragment that came into our atmosphere had probably broken off from the main body of the meteorite after one of these collisions.

The fireball was spotted over Bavaria on 6 March (pictured). In Germany, experts say a meteorite actually strikes the ground only once every eight years or so, with the previous time happening at Braunschweig - also known as Brunswick - in 2013 and before that at Neuschwanstein in 2002

 

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Individual pictures taken of the sun in one year to create a full curve. (credit below pic)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma


Summer solstice at the top.....winter solstice at the bottom and equinox where the lines cross.

http://imgur.com/gallery/N5TPXt1

 

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Moon and Saturn

Earth

Earth's Pulsating Ionosphere

Airglow and Earth's Magnetic Field

NASA Examines El Niño's Impact on Ocean’s Food Source

NASA's Rover Spots Dust Devil On Mars

Sentinel-2A captured Lake Amadeus in Australia's Northern Territory on 19 December 2015.

 

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Sun and aurorae

Earth from ISS

The Gulf Stream waters flow in somewhat parallel layers, slicing across what is otherwise a fairly turbulent western North Atlantic Ocean. The turbulence - made visible by the pigmented phytoplankton it entrains - extends across the whole North American Basin from Anegada to Bermuda to Cape Cod.

This view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows two relatively young craters superimposed on a larger, older impact feature. The smaller craters have streaks of bright material on their walls. (Ceres)

Mars today

 

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Sun, you've been angry today, goodnight, see you tomorrow XD

Mars

Ceres today. (Tupo crater)

Amazing video, showing 2 years of NEOWISE Asteroid Data

"Spider" on Pluto and how supernovae showered Earth with radioactive elements. Actually it happened a few million years ago when I was 23.

 

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AR2529 Sunspot

The 4800-km-wide division in Saturn's rings is thought to be caused by the moon Mimas. Particles within the division orbit Saturn almost exactly twice for every time that Mimas orbits, leading to a build-up of gravitational nudges from the moon. These repeated gravitational interactions sculpt the outer edge of the B ring and keep its particles from drifting into the Cassini Division.

The North Pole Is Moving Toward The UK

Astronaut Tim Peake Shares Stunning Video Of Aurora Australis From ISS

New image from Curiosity (Mars)

New images from HIRISE (Mars); Holden, Jezero, Masursky (craters)

How is Pluto Classified as a Rocky World?

 

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The North Pole Is Moving Toward The UK

Bit of a Gross Exageration the North magnetic pole has a tendency to "wander "

Still in Canada
The North Magnetic Pole moves over time due to magnetic changes in the Earth's core.[1] In 2001, it was determined by the Geological Survey of Canada to lie near Ellesmere Island in northern Canada at 81.3°N 110.8°W. It was situated at 83.1°N 117.8°W in 2005. In 2009, while still situated within the Canadian Arctic territorial claim at 84.9°N 131.0°W,[2] it was moving toward Russia at between 55 and 60 kilometres (34 and 37 mi) per year.[3] As of 2015, the pole is projected to have moved beyond the Canadian Arctic territorial claim to 86.3°N 160.0°W.

 

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Exaggerated. Yup seems so.

Found good (old and new) articles:

No one's 100% sure why it happens (core flux and climate change), we only know that it happens. Pole's shifting.

http://www.nature.com/news/polar-wander-linked-to-climate-change-1.12994
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091224-north-pole-magnetic-russia-earth-core.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-the-earths-magnetic-p/
http://gisgeography.com/magnetic-north-vs-geographic-true-pole/


edit: in one of that articles they assume that 'Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia'

 

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Nothing to worry about when donald is Elected he can build another wall to keep it out of Russia

 

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new image of comet 67P (Cherry-Gerry)

NASA's Dawn spacecraft took new images of Ceres's terrain

Detections of aircraft in flight made by ESA CubeSat GomX-3 during the last 6 months, since it was released from the ISS on 5 October 2015.

The Sun Isn't Yellow Or Orange; It's White

What Awaits Earth When Our Sun Dies


Sun us

Moon

 

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simple but pretty informative videos from Nasa Earth Observatory

Radiation from Sun/Earth & Radiative Equilibrium

New Ultra High Definition (4K) Crew Earth Observations from Nasa Johnson

Dry lake not far from Perth, Australia

Curiosity and Mars today

North of Occator crater, Ceres

Sun today

 

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Jupiter exerts a strong gravitational pull on Europa, creating far more heat than earlier thought on the moon's ice-sheet that is enough to support a sub-surface ocean. A team of geoscientists from Brown and Columbia universities set up experiments to estimate the heat created by the heaves and falls of Europa's icy surface - a process called tidal dissipation.

Cassini Spacecraft Catches Some Interstellar Space Dust

Bangkok from space

X-ray images of two comets ISON and PanSTARRS. The X-ray emission is produced when a wind of particles from the Sun strikes the comet's atmosphere.

During a December 2013 solar flare, three NASA missions observed a current sheet (very fast & flat flow of electrically-charged material)

Current sheets form when two oppositely-aligned magnetic fields come in close contact, creating very high magnetic pressure. Electric current flowing through this high-pressure area is squeezed, compressing it down to a very fast and thin sheet. It's a bit like putting your thumb over the opening of a water hose – the water, or, in this case, the electrical current, is forced out of a tiny opening much, much faster. This configuration of magnetic fields is unstable, meaning that the same conditions that create current sheets are also ripe for magnetic reconnection.

 

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Researchers from Princeton University & the University of Chicago show that the mysterious persistence of the massive fissures known as tiger stripes on the surface of Enceladus could be sustained by the sloshing of water in the vast ocean beneath the moon's thick ice shell. Scientists suggests that the water in the slots alternately rises and falls as the slots are flexed by tidal stresses in Enceladus' icy shell. The heat that this regular motion produces is sufficient to keep the water from freezing even though the moon is encased in ice roughly 30 km thick.

Terrain seen in this view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft is in the northern hemisphere of Ceres. A sharp cliff separates Dada Crater, the smaller crater at top center, from Roskva Crater, the larger crater at left.

Aurora and Sun today

UHD (4K) View of Planet Earth

Reconstruction of the motion of Venus's polar atmosphere

The southern polar vortex on Venus

Mars today

 

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South Carolina at night

Comet 67/P now

Sun now

Mars today

Omonga Crater on Ceres is 77 km in diameter and is located in the northern hemisphere.

Achita Crater on Ceres is ~ 40 km in diameter and is located in the northern hemisphere.

 

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Morning Sunglint Over the Pacific

Aurorae

Hot smoke rising over the factory distorted the shape of the lunar disk and made it seem that the Moon was being drawn into the smokestack

The many faces of Earth

Sahara desert, Algeria

Broad plain covered with cratered cones and domes in the Northern lowlands of Mars

Chaminuka Crater on Ceres

Sun today

 

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Comet 67/P

Earth: Love It - Or Leave It - Or Both (watch on youtube)

Giant Sunspot

Aurorae

Astrophotographer Joshua Snow captured the Milky Way arching over the Finger Lakes National Forest near Watkins Glen, NY. He entitled it: "The Burning Tree."

First high resolution mosaic of the Antarctic continent produced by RADARSAT-2

A comparison of the newly compiled map of the Uummannaq fjord area (left) and an older map (right) (Greenland). Red areas indicate shallower depths, blues and purples deeper.

Nasa's new horizons team released a new video: near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto's horizon

 

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NASA's Dawn spacecraft spotted a pair of craters on Ceres. The crater at left is named Jaja. It's 21 km in diameter and is located in the northern hemisphere.

Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA's Landsat 8 satellite acquired this large natural-color image showing a view of the Caspian Sea around the Tyuleniy Archipelago on April 16, 2016. On its own, the image was strikingly beautiful. Shallow waters surrounding the Tyuleniy Archipelago allow you to see the dark green vegetation on the sea bottom.

At first glance, Saturn's rings appear to be intersecting themselves in an impossible way. In actuality, this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the rings in front of the planet, upon which the shadow of the rings is cast. And because rings like the A ring and Cassini Division, which appear in the foreground, are not entirely opaque, the disk of Saturn and those ring shadows can be seen directly through the rings themselves.

Astronaut Tim Kopra's twitter images:

Sunrise; Himalayas; Caribbean; Moonset

Spacecraft orbiting Earth can provide global views of the ebb and flow of different types of air pollution, but getting down to the local scale where people live and breathe can be a challenge. This map shows concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the lower atmosphere as detected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard the Aura satellite. Air pollution causes an estimated 152000 deaths a year across the Americas and more than 2 million deaths in the Western Pacific, according to the UN.

Fuck that NO2 Little bit better news:

NASA satellite data indicates the layer of ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere is headed slowly back toward normal levels.

Heavy Rainfall Seen in Texas

 

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The Hubble Space Telescope has detected a tiny, dark moon circling the dwarf planet on the frozen fringes of our solar system.

The moon — provisionally designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK 2 — is more than 1,300 times fainter than Makemake

Scientists announced the discovery today, which was made by some members of the team that spotted Pluto's smaller moons years ago.

Makemake, dubbed 'Pluto's little sister', is just 870 miles wide and more than four billion miles from our sun.

The dwarf planet, discovered in 2005, is named for a creation deity of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island.

It is the second brightest icy dwarf planet — after Pluto — in the Kuiper Belt.


The Kuiper Belt is a vast reservoir of leftover frozen material from the construction of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago and home to several dwarf planets.

Some of these worlds have known satellites, but this is the first discovery of a companion object to Makemake.

Makemake is one of five dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union.

The observing team used the same Hubble technique to observe the moon as they did for finding the small satellites of Pluto in 2005, 2011, and 2012.

Several previous searches around Makemake had turned up empty.

'Our preliminary estimates show that the moon's orbit seems to be edge-on, and that means that often when you look at the system you are going to miss the moon because it gets lost in the bright glare of Makemake,' said Alex Parker of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, who led the image analysis for the observations.

A moon's discovery can provide valuable information on the dwarf-planet system.
By measuring the moon's orbit, astronomers can calculate a mass for the system and gain insight into its evolution.

Uncovering the moon also reinforces the idea that most dwarf planets have satellites.

'Makemake is in the class of rare Pluto-like objects, so finding a companion is important,' Parker said.

'The discovery of this moon has given us an opportunity to study Makemake in far greater detail than we ever would have been able to without the companion.'

Finding this moon only increases the parallels between Pluto and Makemake.

Both objects are already known to be covered in frozen methane.

As was done with Pluto, further study of the satellite will easily reveal the density of Makemake, a key result that will indicate if the bulk compositions of Pluto and Makemake are also similar.

'This new discovery opens a new chapter in comparative planetology in the outer solar system,' said team leader Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

The researchers will need more Hubble observations to make accurate measurements to determine if the moon's orbit is elliptical or circular.

Preliminary estimates indicate that if the moon is in a circular orbit, it completes a circuit around Makemake in 12 days or longer.

Determining the shape of the moon's orbit will help settle the question of its origin.

A tight circular orbit means that MK 2 is probably the product of a collision between Makemake and another Kuiper Belt Object.

If the moon is in a wide, elongated orbit, it is more likely to be a captured object from the Kuiper Belt. Either event would have likely occurred several billion years ago, when the solar system was young.

The discovery may have solved one mystery about Makemake. Previous infrared studies of the dwarf planet revealed that while Makemake's surface is almost entirely bright and very cold, some areas appear warmer than other areas.

Astronomers had suggested that this discrepancy may be due to the sun warming discrete dark patches on Makemake's surface.

However, unless Makemake is in a special orientation, these dark patches should make the dwarf planet's brightness vary substantially as it rotates.

But this amount of variability has never been observed.

These previous infrared data did not have sufficient resolution to separate Makemake from MK 2.

The team's reanalysis, based on the new Hubble observations, suggests that much of the warmer surface detected previously in infrared light may, in reality, simply have been the dark surface of the companion MK 2.


'It is a very exciting discovery' Parker said.

'It means that Makemake is no longer the odd-one-out in the moon-hosting Kuiper Belt dwarf planet club, and it means that we can do detailed studies of the mass and density of Makemake that would have been impossible without the moon.'

Makemake is second to Pluto in brightness among the dwarf planets known to inhabit the Kuiper Belt.

 

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Makemake (almost sounds like monkey monkey lol)

Satellites have documented that human-produced and natural air pollution can travel a long way.
This 2014 NASA satellite image shows a long river of dust from western Africa (bottom of image) push across the Atlantic Ocean.

Alps and Northern Italy

Ernutet Crater is featured in this image from Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The crater measures ~52 km in diameter and is located in the northern hemisphere.

On April 26th, Jack Newton photographed plumes of hot magnetized plasma rising over the Sun's northeastern limb:

NASA's 4K View of April 17 M6.7 Solar Flare (download 4K video 5 GB)

From a quarter to half of Earth's vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

Green leaves use energy from sunlight through photosynthesis to chemically combine carbon dioxide drawn in from the air with water and nutrients tapped from the ground to produce sugars, which are the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth. Studies have shown that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.

Cassini Explores a Methane Sea on Titan

 

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Sun today

Mars today

Comet Cherry-Gerry now

Sekhet Crater on Ceres has prominent shadows accentuating its central peak and mounds of material that have slumped downward from its walls.

One Of The Most Inhospitable Areas On Earth Looks Like An Alien World

Coast of Cuba from ISS

Sardinia from ISS

 

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Sun today

Mars today

Rosetta is 28 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P

An image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Lunar swirls can be tens of miles across and appear in groups or just as an isolated feature.

The rim of Hamori Crater on Ceres is seen in the upper right portion of this image, which was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Hamori is located in the southern hemisphere of Ceres and measures 60 km wide.

NASA's New Horizons mission science team has produced this updated panchromatic (black-and-white) global map of Pluto. The map includes all resolved images of Pluto's surface acquired between July 7-14, 2015, at pixel resolutions ranging from 30 km on the Charon-facing hemisphere (left and right edges of the map) to 235 m on the hemisphere facing New Horizons during the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015 (map center). The non-encounter hemisphere was seen from much greater range and is, therefore, in far less detail.

The newest shaded relief view of the region surrounding the left side of Pluto's heart-shaped feature [Sputnik Planum] shows that the vast expanse of the icy surface is on average 3 km lower than the surrounding terrain. Angular blocks of water ice along the western edge of Sputnik Planum can be seen “floating” in the bright deposits of softer, denser solid nitrogen.

 

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Astronomers have discovered a new satellite orbiting the main belt asteroid Elektra - the smallest object visible in this image.

The unique rocky comet C/2014 S3

Berlin from Sentinel-1A

Aurora

Massive storm northeast of Japan

Another episode of Space to Ground

Mars

 

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Latest image of Saturn by Cassini

New images from ISS and Aurora

An elongated, streaming arch of darker, cooler plasma rose up at the edge of the Sun before it broke apart, sending some particles into space (Apr. 28, 2016), while some of the material fell back into the Sun. The particles were streaming along curved magnetic field lines connecting areas of north and south polarity. These details were captured in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light.

How Hot is Mercury?

This image of Mercury's south polar region from NASA's Messenger probe shows a map colored on the basis of the percentage of time that a given area is sunlit; areas appearing black in the map are regions of permanent shadow.
The day side of the planet reaches temperatures of up to 427 C. In contrast, the chilly night side can get as cold as -173 C. These variations are relatively long-lived. Scientists once thought that Mercury kept a single side perpetually facing the Sun, in a condition known as tidal locking. Because the planet lies so close to the Sun, it could only be studied when it showed the same rocky, cratered face toward Earth, though at different points in its orbit. However, further studies revealed that the planet spun very slowly - only three times every two Mercury years, or once every 60 Earth days. Mercury's low mass and close proximity to the Sun keep it from having anything but the thinnest of atmospheres, and this is the reason it must pass on being the hottest planet. An atmosphere helps to cloak a planet, keeping heat from leaking into space and balancing it, to some degree. Without an atmosphere, Mercury loses a great deal of heat into space, rather than sharing with its night side.

Mercury has essentially no tilt, which means that the hemispheres experience no significant difference in temperature from one another. However, Mercury has the least circular, most eccentric orbit of all the planets (Pluto's is more eccentric but the tiny rock is only considered a dwarf planet). The huge range in its distance from the Sun means that the planet does feel some variation in temperature based on where it travels over the course of its 88 Earth-day year.